what was your best tomato yeild?

daylilyfanatic4(Zone 6 SE NY)March 19, 2009

Hi, I was wondering what was the best yeild everyone got last year. How many tomatoes/pounds of tomatoes and what variety it was I'm tying to compile a list of good tasting heavy producing tomatoes. Since my Massive yeild last year (my first year was 1 half size green tomato I don't really have any data. I don't really care what year the more data I can get the better.

The best yield I got last year was from a hybrid plum line I made. The parentage is rather confusing but it is basically a backcross kind of thing between Olpaka and a brachytic plum. I never bothered to quantify the yield. But the plant was huge and loaded from top to bottom. It also had excellent flavor. It is an example of why hyrbids can be better than heirlooms.

Last year was my first time growing from seed. I chose some varieties that weren't so great, but the one (Hank) was a heavy yielder.

My garden gets 5 hours MAX of sunlight per day, because it's on the side of our house and is in complete shade during the morning and late afternoon. With that low amount of sunlight, my best yield came from 3 Hank plants which gave me a plate full of 40 fruit. Of course they didn't ripen all at once, but the peak number of ripe tomatoes I had at one time was over 45. The Hank tomatoes are small though, only about 2 inches across and flattened in shape.

This year I'm trying more plants and more varieties in the same spot, and I hope to have good yields.

Best producing Hybrid was BHN 640...picked it several times throughout the season...Best producing heirloom was the Rutger..another big producer that never fails me.
Every year a spot is reserved in my garden for these 2.

I got 36 lbs. from one Hard Rock plant in 2008. In 2007 I made the 'mistake' of planting two and got 42 lbs. from one plant and posted on freecycle to come and pick the other one. He picked for over half an hour and I had to give him some plastic shopping bags out of the recycler.

I have posted these studies in a few different threads, as I find them helpful. There is data for many different types of heirloom tomatoes here over 3 years. Note that what excels some years may not the next.

Last year I grew out some USDA seed stock and among the varieties was one called Early Kus Ali. I had a row of six of these and from the end of July until the end of September they cranked out buckets and buckets and buckets of tomatoes--it was stunning to me. Out of self defense I bought a big pressure canner just so I could can more jars of sauce at a faster rate. It's a fine slicer, most certainly quite yum, but the overwhelming crop necessitated that I can it or lose it.

This year I grew Indian Stripe and one plant produced 26 tomatoes (counting the 4-5 still on it) that were about 1/2 to 3/4 pound on average with a few smaller and a few "giants" including a 1 pounder I weighed. This was the most productive plant in my suburban, hot, Dallas area backyard so far. The taste is excellent in my opinion, with multiple friends/family saying it was the tomato they'd ever eaten. Our spring season is very nearly history (and fruit set a distant memory), so these numbers won't compare to a SoCal or other locations that have a full summer growing season. I'm THRILLED with this production though.

I counted around 450 fruit from 15 plants that receive about 4 hours of sunlight per day. About half of those were cherry tomatoes, with the biggest producer and fastest growing variety being Black Cherry. Indian Stripe has put out a few so far, but the limited sunlight does take its toll on the production. Black Plum seems to be the best producer second to Black Cherry. The BC's had over 100 fruit per plant at 8-9 feet tall.

And I forgot to mention, all of these plants are pruned to 2-4 stems each because of space restrictions.

When it comes to yield no tommato I have ever grown has ever come close to Pale Perfect Purple,aka Purple Perfect, and it taste great also. This year I planted KBX and Kosovo and they are loaded. It appears that they will match the PPP as they are loaded with huge greenies. Going to be my best year EVER.